Haftorah This Week
Welcome to Haftorah This Week, the place where you will find thoughts and reflections by CLAL faculty and associates on this week's Haftorah.
HAFTARAT ACHAREI MOT
(Ezekiel 22:1-19)
This Haftarah (Ezekiel 22) is one of the most devastating critiques ever recorded in any people's holy scriptures. The prophet declares that in its willful evil, the people of Israel has violated every sacred value of Judaism. Jerusalem (the city whose name means whole/peace) has become the city awash with murder and bloodshed. The princes of Israel use their power to spill blood. The people that we are commanded to honor and protect--fathers, mothers, orphans, widows, strangers--are instead humiliated, cheated and wronged. Fraud, bribery and usury characterize business life; unfaithfulness, rape and sexual abuse characterize private life. Out of revulsion, God has determined to send the people away. The destruction and exile will come soon--but none too soon--says the prophet.
What can we learn from the inclusion of these verses in the Bible? Why would any people want to preserve such a degrading record of its own past misbehavior?
The prophet teaches us that Jews are not genetically different from any other people. Jews are capable of every crime and sin that other people are. Chosenness does not bestow automatic sanctity.
The prophecy teaches us that Jews will be held responsible for their misbehavior. God loves Israel. But if Jews do evil, neither sacrifices nor other 'bribes' will buy God's forgiveness. Being special does not bestow exemption from accountability.
The prophecy also teaches that destruction and exile are not the end. The arrogance which led to evil behavior will be broken by travail and suffering. The experience of being conquered and oppressed will make Jews empathetically feel how the weak and the innocent suffered at their hands. The anger of God will remind Jews that God's love is unconditional, but more is expected from them. Tribal solidarity or ritual obedience are not a substitute for ethics.
Paradoxically, when all appears to be lost, when the nations mock the Israelites as rejected by God, the Jews will know better. Disenchanted with idolatry, they will know that God is God (Ezekiel 22:16). Then they will sense that they need to turn from their evil ways and recover their best values. Then they will find that God is their God--before sin and after sin, before failure and after failure, before their return and after their return.
(Irving Greenberg)
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